Parental Consent

[naomiatt]

If a girl was aged 18 in the 1850's, did she require parental consent to marry?

[Guest]

details.jpg
this might help Naomi

[naomiatt]

Thanks Val - would you mind sending me a pm with the attachment so I can save it....that's a great piece of info..
I wonder how this girl managed to bypass the system...did she pretend her father had passed away?? Would that have generally been accepted by the minister......

[Guest]

I will try

[naomiatt]

I will try

Thanks...or if you prefer, can I send you my private e mail and you send it that way?

[Guest]

snap

[naomiatt]

snap

Make a wish! :D

Thanks for sending that through.

[Guy]

Parental consent for marriage is one of those enduring myths so common in family history bandied about by many who should know better.

The only period that parental consent was required for a marriage is between 1753 (Lord Hardwicke’s Act) and 1823 when the requirement was repealed and replaced.
Cheers
Guy

[naomiatt]

That's interesting.....thanks Guy. When it was repealed/replaced in 1823, did it mention a minimum age for marriage or anything similar?

[Caroline]

Our Parish Registers page includes a link to The Law of Marriage.

[naomiatt]

Thanks Caroline.

[Kit]

Our Parish Registers page includes a link to The Law of Marriage.

Minimum age

During the 19th century the minimum age at which marriage was permitted (with parental consent) was 12 for a girl and 14 for a boy.

In 1929, in response to a campaign by the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, Parliament raised the age limit to 16 for both sexes in the Ages of Marriage Act. This is still the minimum age.

So at 16 you can now marry without parental consent? I'm having trouble reconciling Guy's statement with the article.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Kit

Well, you cannot marry in my county of Cornwall without parental permission if you are under 18, according to the Cornwall County Council website - registration of births marriages and deaths.

OC

[Guy]

Even under Hardwick's Marriage Act of 1753 if the minor had been married before they could marry without parental consent.
These council sites are often produced by people with very little knowledge of the law and simply repeat what other similar sites show.
The consent requirement was repealed under two Acts 3 Geo. IV. c. 75 (1822) and 4 Geo. IV. c.76 (1823).
Ask them to show you the Act or Acts of Parliament overruled the above Acts and which make such a marriage unlawful.
They will not be able to do so. ;)
Cheers
Guy

[colin taylor]

I was looking at a marriage register in the Manchester Archives and saw one entry which stated that the father of the bride came in and prevented the wedding going ahead and this register was in the 1850 -1920 period.
I always thought that under 21s needed parental permission.... otherwise why abscond to Gretna Green

[Guy]

There is a huge difference between a marriage being forbidden by a parent and a marriage taking place without parental consent.
As for cross border marriages (any Scottish town or village not just Gretna).
The main benefit was speed the couple did not have to be resident for three weeks as they would in an English parish (by banns). There was no requirement of a church service, a couple could marry by a simple announcement followed by consummation or for those with time by habit and repute.
Cheers
Guy

PS Most eloping couples simply went to a parish far enough from home to be unknown.

[Richard in Perth]

Are you sure about that Guy? The official government website DirectGov states:

"the minimum legal age in England and Wales is 16 years of age, but written consent may be required under 18 years" (my bold). So have even the Home Office got it wrong?

There's a very detailed discussion of the legal implications of the 1753 and 1823 acts with regards to parental consent by Rebecca Probert. To quote from that website:

... The eventual solution—as adopted in the Marriage Act of 1823—was to retain the basic structure of the 1753 Act, but to provide that a marriage would only be void if the parties "knowingly and wilfully" failed to comply with certain provisions. The purpose of this was to invalidate only those marriages that involved a deliberate flouting of the rules. In addition, in an apparently radical change of policy, lack of parental consent to marriages by licence no longer rendered such marriages void.

But how much difference did these changes make in practice? It has already been noted that, in the absence of parental opposition, the courts had been keen to avoid annulling marriages for trivial reasons when applying the provisions of the 1753 Act. One contemporary commentator, a proctor in Doctors' Commons, noted that it was "difficult to anticipate any material variation," at least in the principles applied to marriages by banns, as a result of the 1823 Act. This was borne out by the first case in which it was necessary to consider the new provisions relating to banns. Wiltshire v. Prince was remarkably similar to Pouget v. Tomkins. The minor, usually known as "Henry John," married his parents' 30-year-old cook—it is hardly necessary to add without their consent—and was described as "John" in the banns. The court held that there was sufficient evidence that both parties knew of the false publication of banns and declared the marriage to be void on the basis that both had "knowingly and wilfully" flouted the law. Similarly, in Tongue v. Allen, a schoolboy entered into a marriage with one Mary Allen, a 35-year-old widow who acted as the school housekeeper. The banns were published in his first name, "Edward," rather than in his middle name, "Croxall," by which he was more usually known, "and that this was done for the purpose of concealment and in fraud of the father's rights, there can be no doubt." The marriage was held to be void, the court noting that this was "precisely the case against which the legislature must have intended to provide." Such cases would have been decided no differently under the 1753 Act, and the courts were clearly keen to interpret the terms of the 1823 Act in a way that preserved their power to strike down marriages conducted without parental consent if a minor error could be found.

... which all seems to imply that parental consent was still required for minors to marry, even under the 1823 act.

[Durham Lady]

So am I to believe that when my father gave his consent for me to marry at 20 years of age in 1966 he needn't have bothered? Why then if consent wasn't needed was the law changed to bring the age of consent down to 18 a few years later?

[Guy]

It was the age of majority that was reduced in England and Wales on 1st January 1970 (In Scotland it is 16).


If you read what Richard was written in bold it contains the word may.
For instance wards of court and others in particular circumstances need consent to marry but not minors in general.
As I have already stated if a father forbid the marriage that is different in law from a father not giving consent.

The 1822 & 1823 Acts repealed the requirement of consent.
Cheers
Guy

[Richard in Perth]

So the Citizens Advice Bureau got it wrong, too?

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_family/family/getting_married.htm

"If you are 16 or 17 you cannot marry without parental consent. Each parent with parental responsibility is entitled to give parental consent. In some circumstances, other people may give parental consent. In Northern Ireland a young person under 18 cannot marry without the consent of certain people."